Publication Ethics

Litikum Journal Publication Ethics

The Litikum journal attempts to comply with all the ethical standards of scholarly publishing, and we expect this commitment from our authors as well. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) webpage covers all issues you may encounter as an author, reviewer or editor of scientific literature. Here, we outline only the most important topics in publication ethics. All of this information is available and downloadable on this page. If you have any questions or need any further clarification, please contact the Editorial Team at the journal’s e-mail address: litikum@litikum.hu.


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Author guidelines Author guidelines & template Cover letter template Citation style (csl) Policies & statements


1 Duties and responsibilities of the interested parties

1.1 Editorial Team, including the Editor-in-chief, Responsible Editor, Associate Editors, and Technical Editors

The editor-in-chief has full authority over the content of Litikum – Journal of the Lithic Research Roundtable (henceforth the Journal), the reception, editing, and publication of the content, as well as its publication and dissemination on the Journal’s channels. In this activity, the editor-in-chief can ask for advice and cooperation from the other members of the editorial team, who contribute to ensuring the operation of the Journal. The editor-in-chief is responsible for maintaining contact with the responsible publisher.

The designated editors, including the editor-in-chief, decide on the publication of the received manuscripts, based on the scientific content of the manuscript, its compliance with the Journal’s theme, its originality, the opinions of the reviewers of the manuscript and the editors. If the author of the manuscript is an editor, the author and other interested parties may not participate in the decision about publication.

The editorial team may not disclose information about manuscripts to persons not involved in the editing and publishing process without the written permission of the author, except for publishing the version of record of the article. The members of the editorial team, including the editor-in-chief, the responsible publisher and the authors ensure full cooperation and amicable resolution of the situation in all suspected ethical misconduct that may arise. In these, cases, the editorial team follow the COPE Flowcharts in their operation. In case of any well-founded ethical concern, the editorial team must report the relevant details of the case to the concerned parties and the general public on the Journal’s communication channels.

The editorial team is also committed to improving the quality of the journal, and to providing authors and reviewers with detailed guidelines which are modified and updated as soon as any new information or change occurs, to ensure responsible conduct from all parties.

In all cases, the editors keep the recommendations of the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors in mind.

1.2 Responsible Publisher and journal management

The responsibility of the publisher and the journal manager is to ensure the functioning and accessibility of the Journal, following the platinum Open Access path, for authors, editors and users alike. The responsible publisher promotes cooperation between the interested parties that guarantee the operation, and in the event of any possible ethical misconduct, participates in the investigation and resolution of the case. In other relevant ethical issues, we consider the COPE guidelines to be authoritative.

1.3 Peer review policy

We follow the COPE guidance on review ethics, and we expect the same from authors and reviewers also. For original research papers and review articles, the Journal usually employs double-blind peer review, thus, the reviewer doesn’t know the identity of the author, and vice-versa. However, as relatively few colleagues have expertise in the Journal’s special subject (lithic studies), in certain cases, an expert editor reviews the manuscript in a single anonymized way, to maintain prompt editing and publication. For book reviews and short communications, an expert editor reviews the manuscript in a single anonymized way.

Both the authors and the reviewers can request the editor for an open method, where all the participants reveal their identities to the others. Upon unanimous agreement, the editor initiates this protocol, which usually strengthens the cooperative and constructive aspects of the process.

Reviewers should examine the submitted manuscript fairly, throughout and objectively, and in a reasonable time, exercising confidentiality at every stage, and report whether they accept (with or without corrections) or reject the paper. The reviewers are expected to provide clear and well-supported explanations for their decision and constructive suggestions for the authors. For our Peer review process, please, consult the “4 Peer Review” section of our Author Guidelines page.

1.4 Authors

Authors are expected to submit their original work not be published or submitted elsewhere at the same time. Authors must acknowledge and participate in the peer review process.

Plagiarism policy. If the author presents the work of others or their previously published work, they must attribute and reference the source. We conduct software screening procedures to ensure the originality of the works we publish. We investigate any allegations of plagiarism, together with the authors of the submitted material. If the allegations seem founded, we involve all alleged parties in the discussion. Be aware that all liability belongs to the authors.

Author’s copyright. The papers published in the Journal, with all of their textual and media contents, as well as their supplementary information provided at our website (https://litikum.hu), are owned by their respective authors under the terms of the Creative Commons license plans noted individually in the contents themselves. See our Terms and conditions for further details on liability.

Third-party material. Authors are asked to use third-party material in a law-abiding, ethical way. They must obtain permission from the rightsholder when using previously published material, especially artwork. They should supply us with the permit upon signing our distribution agreement at the latest. The permit should include a non-exclusive right to the reproduction of the material the Litikum article, until the end date of the original copyright, to the whole world, in the English language. In the case of artwork, for a 300dpi resolution.

Redrawn versions of copyrighted material also need permission for reproduction, they are covered by derivative copyright. The authors may have to present their redrawn version to the rightsholder to supply them with permission.

The authors are asked to always attribute and reference the source of third-party material, even if the item is free to use or public domain.

1.5 Editors as authors

Given the narrow scope and academic community of the Journal’s topic, especially in East-Central Europe which is the main area of interest of the Journal, manuscripts of editors can be accepted by our Journal. In these cases, in addition to the duties explained in the previous „2.1.4. Authors” section, we rely on the COPE’s guidelines:

„Certainly there are examples of editors publishing studies in their own journals, particularly in those circumstances where the choice of journals is limited, as in this case. Provided every effort is made to minimise any bias in the review process by having another associate editor handle the peer review procedure independently of the editor (recognising that it would be impossible to remove bias completely), and the process is absolutely transparent, then this would be the most appropriate route to take. It was suggested that the editor send the article out for review without any names on it, but he said the subject field was so narrow and specialised that any reviewer would know who had written the paper. As an extra precaution, if and when the article in question is published, the editor might like to publish an accompanying commentary showing how transparent the reviewing process had been.” Quotation source: https://publicationethics.org/case/editor-author-own-journal

2 Authors’ statements

2.1 Conflict of interest

When you or your employer/sponsor have a financial, legal, or professional relationship with other organizations, or with the people working with them, which could influence your research, there is a possibility of a conflict of interest.

We require a disclosure statement in your manuscript, following the main text, before the list of references. The statement will be placed in the article after we considered the circumstances and accepted your manuscript. In this way, your statement can not affect peer review.

Statement template: „Following the Litikum journal’s policy and my ethical obligation as a researcher, I am reporting that I [have financial / business interests in] [receive funding from] [am consult to] [an organization / a company] that may be affected by the research reported in this study. I have disclosed those interests fully to the Litikum journal, and I will handle any potential conflicts arising from that involvement.

If You are not aware of a conflict of interest, you do not need to address a statement. In this case, enclose this in the manuscript: „No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

2.2 Funding statement

We require a funding statement in your manuscript, following the main text, before the list of references. Please, supply us with the full name of your funder and the ID of your grant, and any other information that may be required by your funding agent, or you wish to note. If you have more sources, list them.

You may use this template: „The author[s] disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/or the publication of this article: This work was supported by [funding agent] [grant number in brackets].”

If your research was not funded by a specific grant or any grant, use this phrase: „The author[s] received no financial support for the research and/or the publication of this article.

The statement will be placed in the article after we considered the circumstances and accepted your manuscript. In this way, your statement can not affect peer review.

2.3 Data availability statement

Litikum is committed to transparency in humanities research, therefore a data availability statement is required upon submission. This statement does not coerce you to follow any sharing policies, it clears the origin and accessibility of the data you used in the paper. You can choose to withdraw or to share upon request, to share publicly with or without compliance with the FAIR principles on data publication. You can use the following predefined statement templates.

Availability: data sharing is not applicable, because you did not produce any new data for the paper. Template: „Data sharing does not apply to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.”

Availability: all the data can be found in the article or the supplements shared with it, on our website. Template: „The author[s] confirm[s] that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article [and/or] its supplementary materials.

Availability: there are open access data with DOI. Template: „The data that support the findings of this study are open access, and available in [repository name] at [doi link].”

Availability: there are open access data with DOI. Template: „The data that support the findings of this study are open access, and available in [repository name] at [URL link].”

Availability: data are withheld for ethical, legal, or commercial reasons. Template: „Participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, hence supporting data is not available.

Availability: you used third-party data; you are not responsible for the availability. Template: „The data that support the findings of this study are available [from] [third party] / [from the authors / at URL] with the permission of [third party].”

Availability: your data is not managed yet for publication, but you plan to release them after editing. Template: „The data that support the findings of this study will be available after curation [from the authors] / in [repository name] at [URL link].”

Availability: data are under embargo, but they will be available. Template: „The data that support the findings of this study will be available upon request / in [repository name] at [URL / DOI link] following an [duration] embargo from the date of publication.”

3 Corrections and retraction policy

The Litikum – Journal of the Lithic Research Roundtable (hereafter: the Journal) publishes versions of records of articles that cannot be modified or deleted. Errors in content and form, if they directly affect the intended interpretation of the content, will be published in a separate “Erratum” (editing error) or “Corrigendum” (author error) article, together with the original recorded version, on its web page. We will not correct minor errors or typos afterwards if they do not affect the intended interpretation of the publication.

In the event of serious errors in content, form or copyright, including plagiarism, the published article may or may need to be retracted. In this case, the editors publish a retraction note instead of the paper, on the webpage of the already published article, which includes the original publication (meta)data and the reasons for the withdrawal.

The editor-in-chief is responsible for the corrections, the author’s consent is the condition for the correction to be published. The decision to retract is solely the responsibility of the editor-in-chief, the other members of the editorial board and the author may use a proposal, or depending on the law, the editor-in-chief may be obliged to waive this.

4 Data privacy policy

The editorial office uses the data received from the authors, editors and readers of the Journal to ensure the functioning of the Journal in the usual ways of data security and to the fullest extent available to the editorial office. The editors use the email addresses and other contact information collected by the Journal exclusively for the presented purposes of the Journal, and do not pass them on to third parties.

For the privacy policy of the Journal’s website, see our Terms and conditionsPrivacy policy and Cookie policy pages.